


Teenage Dirtbag

by eyesonfire



Series: thinking of a series of dreams (a collection of drabbles) [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drabbles, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 12:39:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesonfire/pseuds/eyesonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis loves Harry too much to ask him to stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teenage Dirtbag

**Author's Note:**

> Summer after High School AU.

~

_~I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby~_

_~_

Louis couldn’t live with himself if he was the reason for the light leaving Harry’s eyes. Harry was young and full of life and talent and promise: he was going to make it big, make something of himself. He was going to do great things. Louis couldn’t hold him back. He couldn’t be that selfish. He was a washed up, going-nowhere teenager; public school and alcohol and dead end job.

His life would be mediocre, completely average, but he could live with that. He could live with a month of Harry Styles, the bright spot in his life, a month of fun and dreams and everything he ever wanted, if having only a month meant Harry got to live the life he could. He could handle the dull mediocrity of his life if he could turn on the tv and see the boy that for one shining moment could have been his future. Could have been his life. Harry tastes like cinnamon and sunshine and he can still taste the ghost of it on his lips.

~  
   
But it was a stolen month, riding on borrowed time and sneaking out. It was hot and bright and wonderful and Louis could see his life with Harry, a life that would be good and full and wonderful but he could just as he could see their lives together, he could see them apart. Louis’ would be the average, boring, regretful and bitter life that he’d already started living, working all week just to earn enough to spend it at the pub on Friday and Saturday nights. Having mates but no real friends. Having girls or boys but no real love. Growing old alone, bitter, the man who shakes his stick at the kids on his lawn.

But Harry, not Harry. His life would be beautiful and wondrous and glowing, shining with fame and excitement and talent. He could make it anywhere, all dimples and green eyes and cheek and a voice from the angels. The voice that had sung Louis to sleep, the voice that sang to his mother’s grave for him when he’d taken Harry to introduce them. It would be the voice of a nation, the idol of so many, Harry would be huge and stunning and he couldn’t take that away from him. He may be nothing but a dirt bag, a going-nowhere asshole, but for once in his life, Louis couldn’t make the selfish decision. Maybe that’s what love really was.

He'd been told once that if you truly loved something, to let it go. Thais was him letting Harry go, he presumed, and wondered why it didn't make him feel any better. Wondered why being selfless, why being a good fucking person for once made him feel so much worse and so much more lonely.

'Wait,' he wants to say. 'Stay.' But he can't and he won't and he bites his tongue and smiles at Harry and tells him there will always be a place for him in his heart but Harry's place isn't to settle here, his place is on billboards and broadway and shining his smile through Times Square. 

So instead he says 'I love you' and somehow that's both 'stay' and 'go' and everything in between. 

~

Harry actually gave a damn about him, cared more about him than anyone since he was two and his mum's lap was the whole world and he loved him for that. And that’s why he couldn’t be selfish, he couldn’t choose to make him stay because he knew that if he asked, Harry would give up everything and stay with him. One word, and Harry wouldn't question it. 

They loved each other too much, in the end. Louis loved Harry too much to make him stay and Harry loved Louis too much to be able to tell him no. Louis feels that maybe he’s grown as a person, as he makes the choice to tell Harry to go, but he knows he hasn’t. He’s still the same asshole, he’s still going nowhere with his life. He heard once that loving someone means you’ll do anything for them, even if it meant hurting yourself. And so he hurts, and as he hurts he prays that Harry can see that this pain is how much he loves him.  

~  
   
And so instead of begging Harry to stay, he smiles through the steel in his throat and tells him it needs to end, tells him he needs to leave and he’s far too good to ever be with Louis.

And Harry protests but Louis knows he’ll forget, he’ll think of Louis less and less until he never crosses Harry’s mind because he’s young and beautiful and has his whole future in front of him. A future that could be anything and everything, a shining, brilliant future that makes Louis’ look tarnished and dull. And Louis smiles sadly and waves, as the boy that was all sun and shine and gold and summer leaves his life and leaves only grey and brown and the dull sludge of autumn creeping in. 


End file.
